The explanation of the science behind the sometimes unorthodox methods he uses can really help you understand how even a more standard approach/technique can get you the desired effect. Plus, the show is just downright entertaining.

Yep, I know not to over-mix pancake batter because gluten, and how that gluten will affect the batter. I can apply that knowledge to other things depending on how "tough" I want the dough/batter to be rather than relying on a recipe to be that specific. That's just one example obviously.

As a broke student myself, I make a lot of dishes with potatoes, rice, and chicken. For most meals I'll cook a starch (rice, potatoes, breads), a protein (chicken,beef, tuna), and a vegetable (asparagus, broccoli, lettuce). With those foods I listed plus a pantry of seasoning you can make a surprising amount of food.

Basic foods you should try:

Chicken tortilla soup in a crockpot (you can used canned beans,corn, and tomatoes = easy to make. There's lots of good recipes for this out there).

Roasted broccoli or asparagus with olive oil, lemon, garlic, and pepper (cut broccoli into pieces / cut off bottom of asparagus, season, bake on a sheet at 400 until slightly browned).

French fries (cut potatoes into fries, season however you want - salted, peppered, or cajun are good - and bake at 425 for half an hour)

Jasmine rice. Learn how to cook it, you can use rice for so many meals. It's cheap, filling, and tasty. I usually use 1 part rice to about 1.5 parts water, put it in a pan until the water boils, then cover and turn heat to low until all the water has boiled off. Then you let it sit covered for a few and then fluff it up with a fork. You can add some coconut to it while cooking to give it some flavor, it's already a sweet rice and it complements it well.

Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking - Most of these recipes are pretty involved, but it's an entertaining way to learn some basic things about cooking.

Look up how to cook chicken breast, the maillard reaction, how to cook rice. Learn the difference between steaming veggies and roasting them (once I learned the magic of roasted vegetables I couldn't go back). Kitchen hygiene is important - use a separate cutting board for raw meat and vegetables, don't touch things after touching raw meat, don't cut raw meat and then cut vegetables with the same knife - this prevents cross contamination. Put away ingredients once you've used them while cooking, and clean everything you used to cook after you eat. That way you can avoid a sink full of pans and cutting boards. different oils smoke at different temperatures, olive oil will start to smoke in a pan way before canola oil will. Olive oil tastes better but be careful not to burn it.

Other basic things... food continues to cook as long as it's hot, that matters when cooking eggs or steak or pasta that you don't want to overcook. Pasta really only needs to cook for 8 minutes or so, you want it to have a little bit of a bite to it. That's called al dente. Most people make their pasta really mushy, try it out sometime and you'll be surprised. Fresh seasoning has a lot more flavor than bottled seasoning, so get a pepper grinder. You can get little mccormick seasoning packets at the grocery that have recipes on the back, those are really good for starting out.

So, now that you've read this wall of text, make chicken, rice, and veggies tonight. Super simple meal, you can season it in a ton of different ways, it'll be a good time.

Try these books by Mark Bittman Link. They are all variations of How to Cook Everything and have great instructions on technique and tons of recipes. These books kinda let you work up from the very basic to more advanced with just the one cook book. Good luck!

As for a cheep meal, I would recommend acquiring an uncoated (as in not a Non-stick pan) rice cooker. Cook your rice in stock made from bouillon cubes, which is cheep, and get some frozen veggies to go with. I like broccoli because the frozen stuff tends to thaw and steam very well. The total is pretty filling and since bouillon is salty, it tastes pretty good too. A bit of protean in the form of beans or whatever meat you get on sale is good. This is what I used as a meal base and I was able to feed myself and my husband for $200 a month in 2012 for a year. Helps that we were able to get the rice in bulk for $.50/lb, but even at normal supermarket prices its not bad. Also, if you mix brown rice or basmati rice with regular white rice, it makes it more filling and adds a grainy, nutty flavor that can be quite pleasant.